Corning makes move to Class A for 2013

Thursday

Sep 5, 2013 at 9:55 PM

Although Corning will jump back to Class AA next school year, since East and West will give way to a singular Corning-Painted Post High School, the Hawks will have some new competition come sectional playoff time in 2013.

By Bob Benzrbenz@the-leader.com

When the Corning Hawks kick off the 2013 football season this evening against Owego at Memorial Stadium, they will do so as a Class A team in Section IV.

When East and West combined athletic programs in all sports beginning in the fall of 2010, Corning became a Class AA school.

However, due to a new state-wide rule that takes effect this year, varsity programs that draw from two separate high schools can measure enrollment with a formula that allows Corning to drop from Class AA to Class A in football.

"Any athletic team that draws from two schools, they take 100 percent of the population of the larger school and 40 percent from the smaller school and they'll add those numbers and those are the numbers they use, so it puts us in A this year," Corning head coach Tim Hughes explained.

Although Corning will jump back to Class AA next school year, since East and West will give way to a singular Corning-Painted Post High School, the Hawks will have some new competition come sectional playoff time in 2013.

The good news: Come playoff time, Corning won't have to deal with defending sectional champion Binghamton or Elmira, which defeated the Hawks in the sectional semifinal round a year ago.

The bad news: The Hawks now have to contend with Union-Endicott, which handed Corning a humbling 33-14 loss at home late last season, along with much-improved teams in Vestal and Horseheads.

So Hughes in no way views moving from Class AA to Class A as some sort of football reprieve.

"Every single one of the (Class A) teams has most of their returning players back, so they're stronger than ever – that's true for Vestal, that's true for Horseheads and that's absolutely true for U-E," Hughes said. "I don't think it's going to be an easy path either way. I have all the respect in the world for the Elmira's and the Binghamton's, but I have an equal amount of respect for U-E and Vestal and Horseheads. I think every single one of them is improved from where they were in 2012."

Corning begins its season at home against an Owego team that it hasn't played since 2010. Although the Indians went 3-6 last season, Hughes is not taking his Week 1 opponent lightly.

Owego runs a lot of misdirection plays out of the Wing-T formation. Although the teams exchanged film from scrimmages last week, there's not a lot of familiarity between the two.

"It's always difficult to play a team right off the bat when we haven't seen them," Hughes said. "It's always difficult to play a team right off the bat when we haven't seen them on film (in a regular season game). I think our kids are fairly athletic. I think we'll match up OK. We need to be disciplined and because we really haven't been tested yet, I have no idea what our discipline will be like. That's going to be our major challenge is everyone making sure that they're in their correct gap and maintaining that level of discipline for 48 minutes."

Offensively, the Hawks will be guided on offense by a new quarterback in junior Kyle Grimaldi, while senior Adarius France may also see some reps at QB.Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. today.

Bath Haverling will also open its season at home tonight against Caledonia-Mumford at 7:30 p.m.